


Ever Tried Shawarma?

by Alexshmalex



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Genius Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Not Beta Read, Parent Tony Stark, Teen Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Time Travel, oof
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23735950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexshmalex/pseuds/Alexshmalex
Summary: Morgan Stark barely remembers her father. Ten years after he saved the universe, Morgan discovers some old Quantum tech, and wants to speak to the man who left all those years ago. Unfortunately for the fourteen-year-old, things don't go entirely to plan, but getting sent to 2012 is not the worst thing she supposes.On Hiatus! Sorry I just have zero inspiration to write this and I don’t want the story to be forced :(
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Comments: 26
Kudos: 162





	1. Tin Can Man

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first ever work, even though I've been using this website for at least five years now. I was getting bored rereading the fics I like and remembered reading that if you cant find the content you want, you should try make it yourself so here you go. I suppose being stuck in my house has a few benefits.

The morning that Morgan discovered the culmination of her fathers last invention was rather unremarkable to say the least. She had a project coming up for her AP Physics class and needed some materials for it. This could have been avoided, of course, had she just told her mom about the materials she needed a few days ago when the project was assigned, or even last night when something could have been done about it. 

But here she was, the morning of the day that the project was due, freaking out because her CEO Mom left an hour ago for Miami and her lift for school was due to leave in an hours time. Under normal circumstances this would be a walk in the park for Morgan, but her mind had been all over the place this week, with the anniversary of her fathers death. 

Her whole life, Morgan had been told that she should be proud of the sacrifice that Tony Stark had made, to defeat Thanos, to save unfathomable amounts of lives. That Iron Man was a Hero, the greatest of them all. At four years old, its hard to comprehend what all that means. At fourteen, the main thing she can think about is why. Why did her father, who was physically average at best and a battle-weakened middle-aged unenhanced man at worst, use the gauntlet when he knew it would kill him, when he knew there were super-soldiers and other enhanced people all around him, when there were better options, - when -

When he knew he wouldn't get to see her grow up?

Now all she has left is the weak memories from her early childhood, the stories her aunts and uncles tell, and this day every year. 

'Okay, enough emotion for one day Morgan H Stark, you have to leave in 45 minutes and you just wasted 15 of them standing in the living room thinking about your dear old dead Daddy.' Morgan shook herself a bit and went down to her fathers old lab in search of something to inspire her adolescent mind into coming up with some kind of quick project to keep her 5.0 weighted GPA up, which she earned by herself, thanks, seeing as no one but her principal knows who she really is. Not that this project would make that much difference, but she likes her teacher Dr Moore, and she likes Morgan "Carbonell", so she wants to keep on her good side, at least until she inevitably finds a way to blow something up. You'd think that would be fairly hard to do in a physics class, but what happened in 8th Grade, stays in 8th Grade. Don't underestimate the power of homemade supersonic sound waves on glass windows, is all Morgan is saying. The fresh start into high school was nice at the start of the year, especially because towards the end a few of her middle school teachers weren't overly keen on her 'do first, ask questions later' attitude but, what can you do?

God she needs to stop going off on mental tangents, or she'll never get this damn project done. As she looked through the piles of organised stuff gathering dust in her fathers lab, she found a box full of little chips all labeled with names of varying strangeness. Her dad's unused A.I. . "HELEN" wasn't the weirdest name, she supposed, but it looked like he had gone through a phase of naming his A.I. after Greek philosophers and poets, which sounds like an accurately Tony Stark level of eccentricity. 

After moving aside some apparently random bits of junk, Morgans hand brushed against the table underneath. 

Which lit up.

And opened. 

Morgan staggered back like she'd been pushed, vaguely recalling a distant memory of something similar happening with her father. In her heart she knew that she definitely shouldn’t be meddling with her fathers things, especially considering they hadn't been touched since his death, and should respect that this was hidden for a reason. On the other hand, this may be the only chance she ever get to truly look at one of her fathers inventions, at least until she finishes college. 

Morgan pushed herself up and looked into the opening made in the top of the desk. there was a reasonably sized hidden compartment inside, containing what looked like a red and white suit like Ant-Mans and some vials of red stuff that glowed a little in the dark room. Huh. 

It took about 2 seconds for Morgan to decide to put the suit on. She turned the light on the mirror beside her and looked at her reflection. Looking at herself, she noticed there was space for the vials of red liquid on the suit. It was only as she put them into their slots that she realized what she was wearing. This is one of the quantum travel suits, the ones used to travel through time and reverse the Snap in 2023. A strange sensation went through her then, like when water is so hot that it feels cold, washing down her spine. 

She could use this suit to see her father. Not the recording he left for her and Mom when he died, not the stories of the soldiers who fought beside him, but a living, breathing version of her father. 

Morgan stopped for a second. If she's not in the house when Happy comes to get her in 20 minutes, she's good as dead. If she wants to go, she needs to go now, and come back to a time maybe 5 minutes from now. 

She still has a project to do after all.


	2. Privatization of  World Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading this, thank you so much!

Morgan looked up at the clock on the wall. 7:10. Right. Just had to be back at 7:15, ideally. 7:15, October 20th, 2033. 

She looked down at the watch-like device on the suit she was wearing. Now all she had to do was decide when exactly to go back to. It would probably be best to go to a time where she existed already - she wouldn't have to explain who she was. That puts her between 2019 and mid 2023. It would probably be better to avoid her own babyhood and Terrible Twos; Mom had told her that they had spent that entire time exhausted out of their minds and Morgan wanted to meet her father in his prime, when he wasn't dealing with a screaming two year old. 

She also didn't want to visit too near the end; she didn't want him to worry about the future, better he enjoys all the time that he has. 2022 would be a good sweet spot. May, some time before his birthday maybe. There wasn't any particular date she cared about to be honest. She's only going to see him anyway. 

Morgan set the date into the watch. And waited. And then noticed the button on her glove, and pressed it.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - 

Morgan opened her eyes from being squeezed shut, and promptly dropped about a foot from where she had arrived. She grunted a little from the sudden jolt, and then wound her shoulder to ground herself and looked around. She was standing in the area she recognized as her back garden, but her house was nowhere to be seen. "Huh, that's weird. The house should be right here..." she mumbled to herself. Evidently not. 

She walked around the area where the house she grew up in should stand, and couldn't find the slightest bit of evidence that this area had ever been looked through, let alone had a house on it. Morgan walked up to were the heavily fortified gates she climbs usually are, and instead finds a rusted iron gate with a green tinted "For Sale" sign on it. 

Either this was some kind of mind trick or...

Oh no

Morgan looked down at her watch.

7:10am, 05/04/2012.

Shit.

\- - - - - - - - - - - -

It didn't take Morgan long to figure out that she was going to have to find her way to New York by herself. She couldn't call Mom or Happy, and certainly not her father, because she doesn't exist yet, and because they definitely have enough to deal with. Hell, her parents were only dating maybe two years at this point. No where near 'marriage and baby in a carriage', not for another six years. She was going to have to hitchhike, maybe sneak onto the train. The lake house was upstate, but not so upstate that an hour long train could get her into the city. Granted, going into Manhattan just before the Battle of New York, or as Peter calls it, "the Incident", is probably not up there in the whole 'not getting yourself hurt or worse' scheme of things, but if she traveled over 20 years into the past and leaves having done nothing, where's the fun in that?

'Okay okay okay Metro-North here I come' Morgan psyched her self up as she walked. As she walked it occurred to her that the train might actually take longer than an hour, seeing as all the technology in this time is 20 years older than she is used to. Wakanda hadn't even made contact in 2012, so everything was running on, what coal and gas? Nuclear power? Gah, crazy to think about. The first Stark Tower off the grid Arc was installed in 2012, now the whole company and all of its locations around the globe were entirely self sustaining, and even sold the power back to the governments of the countries they were in. The trains of the 2010's probably run at least half, if not a quarter as slow as the trains Morgan was used to. 

Eh, probably better off not to be in Manhattan when that went down. As helpful as her father's little 'boy band' were in the beginning, they also utterly destroyed so much of downtown, particularly dear old Hulkie. That will be an interesting one, that's for sure. 

Morgan startled a little when all the birds in the trees around her suddenly flew out of the trees. She turned her head back upwards and concentrated, adjusting her hearing enhancement bud in her ear. That was definitely a 20th century train alright, about 200ft or so in front of her, and about a mile to her right. If she ran, she could make it. Morgan got a sudden vision of Uncle Happy telling her that you can run at ridiculous speeds if you just breathe right.

She braced herself, and took a running start towards the train. While running, she checked the gloves on the suit. They seemed to be reinforced, at least, but they probably would get damaged from the speed of the train. Morgan tapped the device implanted just below her right ear and her built-in nanotech prototype Iron Man suit came to life, wrapping over the quantum travel suit with ease. She'd toyed with the idea of giving herself a different name when she first made the suit, but decided that "Iron Man" was as good a name as any. If it ain't broke, as Uncle Bucky says. The vibranium and titanium alloy would be strong enough to withstand the force of holding on to the outside of a moving train. The train looked like a 1960's EMD, so her gloves would have to keep her on a train running on about 2200 kW or so of power. 'Well,' Morgan thought as she readied herself to jump, 'Not exactly the type of day I was planning but...'

Morgan then made a running jump at the train, and grabbed the outer handrail near the door of one of the carriages. The rest of her body hit the side with a loud thunk as she tried to right herself with the force of the train. She looked into the window beside the door and sighed with relief when she saw it was empty. Using the mechanisms in her gloves, she disabled the lock on the door of the carriage and climbed into it, closing the heavy door behind her as soundlessly as possible, so she didn't alert the ticket guy. 

"Well, well, well. You've gone to a lot of trouble just to avoid a ticket fare, kid." Morgan startled at the sound of a familiar yet formidable voice from her childhood. She turned from where she was facing the door to see none other than Nick Fury, current director of SHEILD, sitting in the train carriage across from her. 

"Now let me ask you two questions once, and once only. Who are you, and where did you get Tony Stark's tech?"


	3. Point Break

Morgan stood still with shock, staring at Fury for what felt like eternity, but was probably about twenty seconds really. He sat there like an old picture in her house from her father's early Avenging days, smirking slightly like he had her cornered. No doubt he did, a man like that doesn't sit in a train carriage by himself seemingly unarmed without a backup crew. There were probably at least four, if not more, SHEILD agents in the carriages either side of their's, watching and listening out for the slightest need to stand in and defend the man sat in front of her. She glanced toward the wall beside her and spotted the signature small silver button-like listening devices on the wall. 

Then it occurred to her. Director Fury had been on the helicarrier in the entire lead up to and during the Battle of New York - he had been the one to tell her father about the nuke sent to wipe out New York city. If it was currently the morning of, he should be in a remote location off shore, not here in some random train carriage. She pressed the side of her helmet to release it from her head. 

"Hello, Talos," Morgan said with a smirk. 

Next thing she knew, she was hit in her exposed neck with something, and the world suddenly became incredibly heavy. The last thing Morgan thought before she hit the ground was that she **really** hoped that she wouldn't fall flat on her face.

\- - - - - - - - 

As she came to, it occurred to her that her little mistake with her watch may be a little harder to deal with than just going down to Manhattan and hoping to run into her father. She knew way too much for her own good, especially in this time of secret Hydra agents and undiscovered Winter Soldiers. She may have to play dumb a little if she wanted to actually do anything on her visit, or even get back to her own time. She wished that had occurred to her before her run in with dear old "Uncle Nick", so she was going to have to just tell Talos the truth, but the fact that SHEILD wasn't just made up of loyal American patriots at this time meant that he was the only one she be able to truly trust in the organisation - and maybe Agent Maria Hill, but she had enough on her hands at the moment. She vaguely remembered the names Brock Rumlow and Alexander Peirce, but she knew that when SHEILD had broken down in 2014, it was theorized that at least a third to a half of the organisation was Hydra. There was no way for her to tell who she could trust, so better to keep it to the real Fury, the fake Fury, and Hill. 

The pressure on her wrists was unfamiliar but expected. They had no reason to believe she wasn't hostile, and she had been wearing a technologically advanced, functional version of a suit that had been unsuccessfully replicated for years leading up to this. The battery powered wall clock told her it was 11:30, so she had been out a couple hours. They had figured out how to disable the Iron Man suit, and her implant was a bit sore, meaning they had tried to pry it off her while she was under, but were obviously unsuccessful. A few years ago her father had said the suits were part of him, and evidently the agents had discovered this was rather more literal in her case. She hadn't been changed in the time she'd been out at least; they'd left her in the quantum travel suit, obviously after they'd realized it wasn't armed. That was a little bit of reassurance at least, she wouldn't have to get the suit back, and she didn't have to worry about anyone from this time getting their hands on time travel tech. 

Morgan took in the rest of her surroundings as much as she could tied to the chair. She was in a standard, reasonably sized holding cell, about 10ft by 6ft by 8ft, reinforced cement floor and painted gray cinder block walls, no doubt a cover for solid steel. There was a one-way mirror and thick titanium door on the wall to her right, and two cameras in the top corners of the wall on her left. She was probably two dozen floors underground, so no point plotting some kind of devious escape if she can get out some other way.

She turned her head towards the mirror and stated in a clear calm voice, 

"You'd better send Fury in cause I'll only talk to him"

The wall with the mirror and the door was obviously as soundproofed as you could get in 2012, but she could her the scuffling from the other side with her hearing enhancement, followed by beeping. After a minute, the door made a sound like it was decompressing, and it opened to reveal none other than Nick Fury, looking fairly pissed and tired. 

"Okay, young lady, you don't make the demands here. We know that your armor suit was made with some kind of nano technology that's beyond even the greatest minds we know, beyond Tony Stark, even. The other suit that you're currently wearing is some kind of approximation of the suit previously worn by the individual known as Ant-Man, and you have some of Hank Pym's technology to boot. Now , if we weren't in the middle of a national emergency, I'd have all my best agents on you right now, but some teenager in tech she shouldn't have is a bit lower on our priority list. Are you gonna answer the questions I ask or did you call me in here just to stare at me?"

Morgan looked up at the Skrull in disguise, and said gently, barely audible, "Is there anyone else behind that glass? Its just that I'm sure you're aware of the importance of secrets that could affect the welfare of an entire race of people, Talos."

Fury/Talos flinched like she had struck him. The fact that she clearly knew what she was talking about, and knew of his true identity, was a liability. There were only about four people who knew that in 2012, the same three people she knew she could trust with her own identity, plus Carol Danvers. He shook his head; he'd come down to talk to her alone, but well armed. He stood up straight and sighed. 

"I don't suppose you'll actually tell me your name now, seeing as apparently you know all of _my_ secrets already?"

Morgan looked at him and said bluntly, "My name is Morgan H Stark. I was born December 20th, 2018. My parents names are Virginia "Pepper" Potts and Anthony Edward Stark. I'm sitting here right now because I got my hands on my fathers quantum manipulation time travel suit. I invented the Iron Man suit I was wearing based on one of my fathers old designs. You happy?"

"Young lady, unless you think I'm some old fool, don't go spouting some story you just made up." His kind of Australian accent was peaking through a little the more he spoke to her

"You wanna test my DNA to see if I'm pure blooded Earth Girl, or are you gonna keep asking me dumbass questions?" She leaned back as well as she could to gauge his reaction. She almost wanted to tell him she knew about Howard and Maria's "car crash" and the man responsible, but there wasn't much point bringing it up. Talos hadn't been around when it happened and promptly covered up, and Fury had only been a fairly low ranking agent at the time. It was possible they didn't uncover the cover-up until Uncle Bucky showed up a few years down the line. 

Talos laughed to himself a little, "Yup, definitely Stark's kid. Last thing: why are you really here?"

"I wanted to meet them. When their friendships where new and they still held patience measuring contests." Not entirely true, but if she told him that he wouldn't take her as seriously. If she told him she messed up something as simple as what year she wanted to travel to, he'd laugh. He was clearly starting to trust her a little if he laughed at her jokes, so that was something at least. "I could help out, if you want? With the situation in the city?"

"No, Ms Stark, I think we both know that meddling with your family's personal history could go very wrong. You ever watched _"Back to the Future"_? It would probably be better if we get you some civilian clothes and you wait it out. You're not gonna be able to tell them who you really are, you know that right?"

Morgan nodded her head, then paused and looked at the man in front of her for a second with a raised eyebrow. 

"So, are you gonna let me out of these cuffs, E.T?" 

He startled, "Right, yeah , sorry."


	4. Star Spangled Man With A Plan

Morgan had forgotten the ridiculous fashion choices of the early 2010's until right that second, as she looked through the catalog of back-up clothes that SHEILD kept for their undercover operatives. Navajo prints and tassels, seriously? She was glad those hadn't been brought back into fashion in her own time, honestly. She picked out some "jeggings", a pair of converse, and a graphic tee with the Mk2 Iron Man suit on it. It made her laugh a little, like a dumb inside joke with herself. They were the most practical clothes she could find in the room, and wouldn't be too bulky should she need to put the quantum suit on over them. 

She left the room once she'd changed, and found Talos, still disguised as Fury, waiting for her. 

"So whats my cover story? SHEILD agent being trained young? Estranged adoptive daughter? Reformed Russian child spy?"

Talos considered her for a moment.

"Niece and protege, and I'll disguise myself as a non-existent SHEILD agent so nobody gets suspicious that there's two Nick Fury's hanging around with the Avengers". Morgan did a double take. He was actually going along with her plan, just like that. "Hey, kid, I know that you're probably lying about why you're here, but I figure you've got a good reason to want to talk to them. You're smart enough not to tell any of them who you really are?" Morgan nodded. 

"Well I don't know why I trust you kid, but as long as you keep your word, I've no reason not to trust you. No average kid could grab the side of a moving train and survive, or convincingly come up with a story as wack as your's so yeah, Morgan Stark, I'll help you. Do you know how to get back to your own time?" Morgan nodded again, still a little shocked. 

"Well then I'll make sure you make it there unscathed after all this. I'll give you 24 hours. Okay question time: What's your full name?"

"Morgan Antonia Carbonell". She said without a second thought. It was the name she went by in school.

"Impressive. Date of birth?"

"December 20th, 1997". No point lying about her age with the appearance of a 14-year-old, so she just recalculated the year.

"Parent's names?"

"Harold and May Carbonell". Happy and May were her cover parents for school.

"Age?"

Morgan rolled her eyes "14, but I know that. Why'd you test me on it?"

" _I_ didn't know, and it's important for me to know these things too, as your favorite Uncle Joey."

She let out a laugh at that. Right, she was gonna play happy families with an alien in order to see her father. Talos had switched his disguise to a man, about 30 or so, with deep brown eyes, light brown hair, and nose like her mother's, like her own. She shook her head a little and rolled her shoulders. 

"Joey Carbonell?"

"Joey Reilly, your Mom's younger brother."

"Date of birth?"

"3rd of July, 1980"

She smirked. "The reason why you say your dates like a European?"

"My father Joseph Senior, your grandfather, is a naturalized citizen originally from Kildare in Ireland. My mother Toni was a first generation Italian-American.One sibling, your Mom."

"Good. Your connection to SHEILD?"

"An agent, but otherwise, classified"

"Alright Agent Reilly, what do we do as the world almost ends?"

"Almost. That's reassuring"

"Born in the future, remember?"

"Sarcasm, remember?" He turned away from her and looked down the corridor. "I don't suppose you wanna play pinball to pass the time?"

Morgan tensed. "No chance I could watch the fight from a TV?"

"'The Fight' hasn't even started yet, kid." He shifted on his feet and turned to walk down the corridor. Morgan followed him into the elevator, and examined the panel displaying the floor number as Talos called an instruction to it. Twenty-five floors below ground level, and there's probably another few under that. She knew the base she was in wasn't the main one in D.C, but she had been meaning to ask him where she actually was. 

"I'm bringing you up to the common area. I would suggest a tour of Manhattan, but I'm gonna guess that if your father from your time found out, he'd keel over"

Oh yeah, she hadn't told him about Tony. She gave a little cough to cover up her eyes getting wet. 'Uncle Joey' seemed to realize what he had said a second later, and looked down at her regretfully.

"So that's why you're here. Sorry for your loss, Morgan"

"I was gonna say it's alright but Mom likes to think she didn't raise a liar so... Thanks."

"No problem." 

They stood in slightly uneasy silence until they arrived at their destination. They both stepped out into the long corridor, and Morgan counted about 30 or so SHEILD agents, sitting in front of old-style opaque computers in the room at the end of the corridor. She was about to walk down to them, but Talos put a hand out in front of her.

"Hold on, where do you think you’re going?”


	5. Avengers... A-

As nice as it was to have a cover in the form of the Area 51 reject, Morgan knew if she wanted to actually get anything done, she would have to go rouge, and not like the X-men girl. Talos keeping a close eye on her means shes gonna have to sneak out via some other way. She didn't want to change history, but she figured that if she helps now, that's the way things were always meant to go, right? And she definitely has the tech to do so. The only problem with leaving Talos' cover is that it might be a bit hard to get her quantum suit back at the end of the day, but its not like Talos is going to stop her from going back to her own time. She's just going to have to flash her puppy dog eyes like she does on her uncles and hope she reminded him of his daughter enough to pity her. 

All of this Morgan thought through while sitting on the sofa of the common room in SHEILD, to stop herself from pulling her hair out with boredom. If she waits until after the battle, she only has an hour or two with her father before she has to leave, according to Talos' plan. Morgan touched her hand to her ear and turned her hearing enhancement off. She'd disrupted her hearing with her physics experiment last year and, while no expense was spared with her medical care, it still left her with hearing damage. Sometimes it was nice to just turn her hearing down and think, so she'd upgraded the hearing aid they'd given her. And by upgrade, it was more like completely remade loosely based on the original design. It would be dishonest to call it a hearing aid, considering that with it, she can now hear far better than those with the clearest unenhanced hearing. With her head clearer, Morgan started thinking of an escape plan.

\- - - - - - - - - 

Leaving the eight SHEILD agents who had been in the common room with her passed out on the floor hadn't been that hard, frankly. She had attached a multifaceted insta-taser into her Iron Man suit, as a quick nonlethal defense. Talos, at least, knew enough to be on his guard around her, but he probably had assumed she would be non-hostile after agreeing to their plan. Watching a fully trained agent crumple to the floor like that was an odd mixture of disturbing and satisfying. It wasn't like she'd tested it on anyone before so, good to know it worked as she'd designed it. Not that she doubted her designs. She oriented herself a little and walked towards the exit. 

Their facial sensors wont work on her, so the next step is just walking out of the facility as calmly as possible. Happy has told her once that the best way to walk through a room without being noticed is to just act like you belong there. She pulled her messenger bag a little tighter across her, and pulled her shoulders back. They probably wouldn't mistake her for an adult with her build, but if they just thought she was where she was supposed to be, then that would be enough. Fortunately for her the common room was on the same floor as the entrance. The whole entrance area was swarming with agents, but Talos wouldn't have brought a visibly unconscious fourteen-year-old through there, so it should be safe.

Just like that, Morgan walked right out the front doors of the SHEILD building, while avoiding the gaze of the doormen. It was a little worrying how easy that was, but in fairness she did have a lifetimes worth of _"How-To-Escape-A-Situation-You-Don't-Want-To-Be-In"_ from both Uncle Happy and Uncle Bucky. Not that either of them knew what the other was doing. She started to make her way through the uncannily familiar streets towards the original Stark Tower, in all its narcissistic glory. While the technology running the Tower was old news to her, she had to admit how impressive it was to build an entire skyscraper based on what was at the time revolutionary technology. She had a vague recollection of her Mom joking that she only owned 12% of it, with a touch of sadness mixed in, like everything to do with her father. 

A sound like a fizzing rocket whizzed over Morgan's head just as she was walking down the street, pulling her out of her thoughts. She looked up and saw it. 

Or rather, him.

Tony Stark, in a sputtering Iron Man suit, zipping over her head like a bullet shot from a gun, in the direction of his own Tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I'd just like to say I personally am not part of the deaf community, or hard of hearing, but I have hoh relatives, although theirs was not caused by an accident. If the way I portrayed Morgan's partial hearing loss is insensitive, please let me know and I will adjust the story going forward and correct mistakes. I don't want her disability to be something that hinders her life, but rather that she is still an incredible genius with her hearing loss and not in spite of it. Thank you so much x
> 
> Also, in case anyone is using the movie as a reference (like I am) were at the 1hr 38mins mark at the end of the chapter :)


	6. Shellhead

There was something strange about the realization that she had just seen her father in the flesh for the first time since his death back in 2023. This version of Tony Stark was a middle ground between the version of her father that the media knew in the 90's and early 2000's, and the man that had called her "Magoona" in their back yard and threatened her with a handful of crickets for lunch. This man was not her father yet, but he had started the journey towards it. 

And at that moment, this man was floating just above his own tower in his crappy, malfunctioning Iron Man suit, apparently trying to debate the opening on the Chitauri portal with the mind-controlled Dr Selvig. 

For a genius, he really had little tact. Morgan watched Tony raise his hands up at the nuclearly destructive infinity stone and shoot at it. And watched as he got shot back. The swarm of people rushing past her all collectively startled, joined by some screams. Oh my god, how that man lived long enough to marry her mother and have her was beyond her. 

Morgan realized at that moment what "getting involved" was going to entail. She literally entering what was going to be an active war-zone filled with flying murder aliens in about 2 minutes. 

Her father had moved down to his balcony level and gone inside, taking his damaged suit off. She'd been told the story many times over the years, by her Mom, by her uncles, by Iron Man's fans in school who didn't even know her connection to him. After a quick discussion with Loki the god of mischief, Morgan watched her father get thrown through the huge glass panels of his penthouse and free fall with no visible armor on. She knew what would happen next: his armor would fly out after him, and he would get it onto himself just before he hit the ground. Knowing that logically and watching it in real time were two very different things however. Morgan gritted her teeth as he put his hands out in front of him and caught himself with his rocket repulsors, did a vertical U-turn and fly back up. She'd tested out a similar maneuver herself recently, but her own test had been from a huge tree in her backyard, not a 93 story skyscraper.

Morgan kept her eyes on her father as he flew up back towards the tower, and then heard a loud noise that startled the bustling crowd around her even further: the portal had been triggered. The bright beam of light broke the sky and seemed to turn that patch of sky to night. The glowing blue ring around the portal pulsed and glowed in a way that should not be menacing, but definitely was, considering the murderous purple aliens coming out of it like roaches through a sink. She watched as the aliens shot at her father and as he tried to get shots back at them as he soared upwards in their direction. It was then she noticed that the civilians all around her were just standing there dumbstruck.

"EVERYONE, RUN!" Morgan yelled, as she herself ran away from the conflict. "INTO THE SUBWAY". The Chitauri seemed to be purposefully targeting civilians, flying through the street causing as much destruction as possible. The ships were crashing into buildings above her as Iron Man shot them down. The giant Chitauri ship that had caused her father's nightmares then decided to make an appearance, and she could understand the nightmares. In comparison to a human, the thing was unfathomably massive and destructive in its own right, never mind the troupes of Chitauri it was deploying into her city. 

"Stark, are you seeing this?" she heard off to her right. She turned her head; she was used to being the only 'Stark' around, so she had absentmindedly thought the man was talking to her. Beside her, in all his star-spangled glory, was good old freshly defrosted Captain America, talking to her father on his com. She picked up something on the other end of his com and heard him respond "Banner?". 

It was at that point she decided she may have to find a better place to shoot the Chitauri from than right in the the middle of the street. Even if they didn't actually know who she was, the fact that she had Stark-type technology in this time was already reason for suspicion. If she sets up at the perimeter, she could help Clint and her father keep the fighting away from the civilians and focus the attack into the center. 

She ducked in behind an alleyway and quickly suited up. Hopefully in the confusion, people would think she was their time's Iron Man. Morgan was glad, now, that she'd chosen to go the nostalgia route in her design of the suit. The main difference was the shape and depth of the arc reactor powering her suit; hers was about 50% smaller and flush with the suit, as opposed to inlayed like Tony's. She was, however, also physically a fair bit smaller than the 41 year old version of her father, so hopefully they would just think he was far away or something. 

Morgan powered up her suit and flew up onto one of the buildings on 39th street. She fired up her longer range cannons and started firing

\- - - - - - - - - 

She stayed like that for the rest of the battle, moving from building to building as they got destroyed by the onslaught. She saw Clint on one of the buildings, made eye-contact with him, and saw visible confusion on his face. She quickly lowered her helmet and made the sign for 'friend' in ASL, which confused him even more, but she guess he probably had bigger fish to fry at that moment that someone who was obviously helping him, shrugged and turned his attention back to the alien army.

And that was when her day went from shit to shit-tacular, as she watched her father zip past her carrying a nuke. 

Pepper Potts-Stark had always talked about that day day with weeping eyes and a guilty soul. She had told Morgan in whispered tones about how her father had tried to ring Pepper as he flew to what he thought was his death, and she didn't answer or even hear it ring because she ironically had been too worried about Tony while watching the news coverage. The knowledge that he could have died that day with his final memory being a failed call still seemed to haunt her over two decades later. That was not the first, nor the last, time Pepper had thought Tony had died because of his lack of self-preservation, but it was one that hurt her most, because she could have been with him through it. Like she had in the end.

Morgan watched for a few stuttering seconds as the man she had loved in a lifetime before dove into the portal with a city-leveling nuclear bomb, and stayed there. The portal glowed an earthly orange, and then started to shrink. She wondered for a few heart-stopping seconds if her presence in this time had caused some kind of rift, if the man who will go on to raise her will fall out of the hole in the sky like she knew he should, like he had before. 

Then she saw the tiny speck free-falling down towards his tower, like some kind of religious metaphor she couldn't come up with. She was watching with anxiety as he just kept falling, and then breathed a sigh of relief as OG Hulk snatched him out of the sky. She wondered, then, how often his teammates forgot that Tony Stark was only a man. His fragile body got pushed off the Hulk unceremoniously and, while she had no doubt there was plenty of armor in the suit, she wondered what kind of injures he had gotten over the years from his friends thinking his body was as impenetrable and handling him with as much care as a doll in a house full of football players. She watched as his new friends checked his heart and breathing, and jumped a little at the roar that the Hulk let out but, granted, that seemed to do the trick. Tony Stark, now back in the land of the living and decidedly _not_ a Jesus metaphor, let out a yell, and then looked around and relaxed a bit

"What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me." 

Cap let out what looked like an exasperated sigh and sat back a little, nodding.

"We won."

"Alright, yay! Alright good job guys," Morgan could hear Tony say in the way she knew meant he was still a little out of it from his fall, "Let's just not come in tomorrow- let's just- take a day. H've you ever tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint a few blocks from here. I dunno what it is but I wanna try it"

"We're not finished yet" Thor said in his godly way that made everything seem important, even when she was a little kid and he was talking about eating her veggies.

Tony seemed to consider that but Morgan knew like she knew herself that he wasn't really paying attention. "...And then shawarma after."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was a long one huh.   
> I didn't want to write out the entirety of the events of the later half of Avengers, but I also know if i was reading this fic and hadn't watched it in a while I'd want a description of what was going on so hopefully I have a happy medium here? idk.   
> Lemme know what y'all think, next update will (most probably) be on the 29th.  
> Thanks so much   
> Alex x


	7. Shakespeare in the park

It was at that point, looking down at the limp body of her injured father being hoisted up by his super-human and demigod buddies, that she realized her hearing enhancement wasn't working properly. Normally, she would be able to hear something like the creak in Tony's suit from this distance, but her hearing was muffled. Morgan thought back and remembered in the heat of the battle, one of the Chitauri hover ships had been blasted and gone down right in front of her. The shock waves from the blast had probably been the thing to disrupt the device, but she hadn't noticed in the fighting because she had had it turned down. She hadn't exactly left her house this morning with the tools she normally had for fixing these kinds of malfunctions, so she was going to have to find a way to re-calibrate them somewhere else. 

Morgan's heart rose when she realized that this could be her 'in'. Clint already knew her from the battle, and hopefully would be sympathetic to her if she told him about her hearing enhancement. She would then have an excuse to be around the team, and in particular, Tony. She just had to find her way down without causing too much notice. 

Morgan de-activated her suit, and slipped down what was left of the external fire escape on the office block she had been perched on. She looked around for Clint, and then jumped out of her skin when she felt a tap on her back. Speak of the devil. 

_'Hey, kid, are you okay?'_ He signed to her. He must have seen her messing with her ear and device and wincing. Also, based on the fact he was already a dad in this time, Morgan figured he must also recognize the look of a lost kid on her face.

Not that Morgan considered herself a kid. 

Obviously. 

All these adults calling her 'kid' was getting into her head. 

_'My hearing aid got damaged in a blast. I can still sort of hear but its not great. Do you think the Tin Can would let me borrow some tools?'_ Morgan was so glad that she had taken her own time's Clint Barton up on ASL lessons, just for the laugh that he let out at that. She knew that a sign for 'Iron Man' had been coined at some point, but her habit for calling everyone by anything but their name bled into her signing as much as her audible speech. 

Clint took a step back and seemed to look her over. _'Where's the suit?'_

Morgan turned her head to her left and showed him the nanotech implant under her right ear. She tapped it so that the nanites in her arm got released and wrapped around it. The spy in front of her actually looked surprised, which was a first for Morgan. She took that to mean he had enough confirmation of her being on his side but-

_'Who are you?'_

Morgan paused for a moment. She considered coming up with a whole new fake name, but then realized she would be attempting to lie to a spy. 

_'You can call me M-O-R-G-A-N'_. Morgan finger-spelled out her name, and then signed her name-sign, an M turning into an O.

 _'You're too young to be fighting in a war zone, Morgan. Do your parents know you're here?'_

Morgan looked him in the eye, attempting the most piercing glare she could manage. Clint laughed at her again. 

_'Alright, no parents. I'll help you with the hearing aid, and then we're finding... whoever it is that looks after you.'_

Morgan was pretty satisfied with that. Clint seemed to know she was independent enough for a teenager, and she respected him for respecting her. Hell, they had fought a battle together, and you can't do something like that without some respect for each other after. 

_'Your buddies said something about food earlier?'_

Clint paused and looked up towards the tower. He squinted up at the top of the building, where Loki was. Oh yeah. Clint only just broke out of his mind control. And Loki was still lying unconscious in the penthouse level of the tower. 

_'I'll get you into the tower, and you meet me and the rest for that food after?'_ Clint signed, watching her face. Morgan nodded and looked at Clint with a smile. 

The man turned towards the tower, and started walking through the ruins of the city, and then checked behind him to make sure she was following him. Morgan looked at him and rolled her eyes as she started in the same direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all... I'm trying so hard not to let Morgan be a self-insert oc type character (not that there's anything wrong with that- just not what I'm going for).  
> Also love that I actually allowed myself an extra day to write this and then actually finished it today. I was gonna wait until tomorrow to post it but I'm impossibly impatient lmao.  
> Please give any feedback you can <3  
> Thanks  
> Alex x


	8. Manchurian Candidate

Stark Tower, or rather "A" Tower, in its current iteration looked like a strange bird. Granted, in her own time it hadn't changed much, but the point still stands. The soon-to-be Avengers Tower was destroyed along the whole side, and its huge panels of expensive glass shattered carelessly by the battle. Much like the rest if the city, the sky scraper bore the marks of the battle ground it had just been. Clint walked evenly in front of her, double checking down each alleyway for stray Chitauri soldiers. Somehow, all of them had deserted as soon as the portal started closing, but it wouldn't be a pretty sight if even one of them got into the rest of the city. 

When they got to the entrance of the tower, Clint nodded to the SHEILD agents investigating the lowest floor, and then motioned with his head for her to keep following. In the elevator, Morgan took the time to look at the utter destruction from the higher angle. The New York she knew had long recovered from this catastrophe, but Morgan had visited the memorial on the 20th anniversary, last year (or, she supposed, in 20 years time). Being told how much of the city got flattened and actually seeing the evidence were two incredibly different things. Many buildings had distinctive skid-marks down the sides, from the Hulk easing his fall, and there was evidence of explosions everywhere. When the elevator arrived at what Morgan presumed was the floor with her fathers labs, Clint turned to her. 

_'Are you okay here for a while, Morgan?'_

Morgan nodded back and walked out of the elevator towards the glass door of the lab. She reached towards the door. It was definitely locked with a pretty tough mechanism. She turned towards Clint again, and raised her eyebrow. His eyes widened and he nodded, then took out his phone. 

"Hey, Stark, could you open your lab for me? ... Yeah, Yeah, I'll be up in a minute and tell you." Morgan could make out. A second passed, and then the door clicked open. 

Clint moved his hands like he was going to say something, then seemed to hesitate and think better of it. Morgan smiled and nodded to him again. Clint saluted her, and then turned and left to join his team. 

Morgan looked around the lab. It was clearly quite dated in comparison even to her father's old dusty garage in her house, but it was quite a bit better than what she imagined any personal lab anywhere else would be like. It smelled like motor oil and smoke, a smell that brought back childhood memories of playing with prototypes and pretend repulsor gloves. Morgan found the tools she was looking for and gently took her hearing enhancement out to work on it. It made a little reverb screech when she took it out, and she winced. Once she got working, though, she let her mind get into the work at hand. There wasn't that much physically wrong with it, so it would only take her a couple minutes at most.

She was right in the middle of working on the device when something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. She turned and looked out of the large interior window to see none other than Captain America falling from one of the walkways in the atrium, quickly followed by... 

Captain America?

What???

She watched with a strange fascination as she watched the two Caps push themselves up off the ground, surrounded by glass. The Cap with a cap on -heh- tacked the Capless Cap to the ground in a choke-hold, seemingly fighting over the Scepter on the ground. Morgan thought Cap-less was going to be a goner for a second, but he looked like he was saying something to Capped Cap through the hold. Apparently whatever he said was enough, because Capped let go of his hold long enough for Cap-less to grab the scepter and use it on Capped. He stood up, looked down at his double's incapacitated form, nodded to himself, and walked off towards the entrance. 

Morgan's eyes widened when she realized what she had just witnessed. The 'Time Heist' of 2023 had been a favorite story of Scott, one of the last active Avengers from the time. Scott, Steve Rogers, Professor Hulk, and her father had traveled through time together and retrieved three of the infinity stones from New York. What Morgan hadn't realized up until now was that they had traveled to New York, in 2012. 

The Tony Stark from 2023 was here. 

And there was no way for Morgan to meet him without messing up his plan to save the world. 

If Morgan went now and tried to see her father, the one who actually raised her that is, she'd derail his entire plan, and risk exposing him and the others to the 2012. As much as it pained her, there was no possibility she could talk to him without screwing up the timeline and creating an alternate future, which would then make it basically impossible for her to get back to her own. 

She was going to have to settle for 2012 Tony Stark, with all his leftover bachelor eccentricities and flare for the dramatic. Her stomach rumbled a little as she worked, and she began to feel grateful that she was getting food soon. She'd arrived here at 7am, jumped on a train, got knocked out, interrogated, escaped, and fought a battle all within one day. No wonder she was hungry. 

Morgan sighed a little, and went back to fixing her hearing enhancement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry that this one took so long :(  
> I've been catching up with all my school work cause I'm in a tough year of school and I haven't been able to actually write what I wanted.  
> For future reference, I'll probably update twice a week? I read and respond to all my comments tho so keep them coming!  
> Thanks so much for reading so far,   
> Alex x


	9. Trash Panda and his Squad

Once she had the hearing enhancement re-calibrated and working properly again, Morgan set it back into her ear and switched it on. She had toyed with the idea of just making an implant instead of a removable device, back when she had first designed it, but decided the risks outweighed the benefits. Even her Iron Man implant she'd needed months to think about, and it can be removed with a strong magnet. She was glad she hadn't made it permanent in this case, because it meant that fixing it with limited tools was far easier. 

Morgan rolled her shoulders and looked around at the lab, before turning towards the door and reaching out to leave. The door had locked again, and 2012 Tony was out currently dealing with getting Loki locked up on Asgard, meaning she'd have to find some other way to get out. If she was at home she'd just ask F.R.I.D.A.Y. but-

JARVIS. Morgan had never met him, only heard stories of his from her mother, and then explanations about Vision's existence. He had been based on her fathers butler, Edwin Jarvis, who had definitely done more to raise Tony than Howard ever had. Morgan supposed he was kind of her older brother in a way. 

"Hello, JARVIS?" Morgan called out to the room. 

"Yes, young Miss?" An English accented voice answered her from the ceiling. If she hadn't been used to it from F.R.I.D.A.Y. she supposed she probably would have startled from it. 

"Ooh, you're very polite. Do you know who I am?"

"No, Miss, there is no data on my system or online as to your identity. I know Mr Barton brought you up here and Sir approved of you entering his lab but I have no other information on you"

"Would you perhaps let me out if I asked?"

"There is a password on the door of the lab both internally and externally. Only Sir and Ms Potts knows this password."

Huh. Well here's to hoping her father has always been sentimental.

"Virginia"

"Access allowed"

_Nice_

As she walked out of the lab and over to the elevator she smirked a little.

"JARVIS?"

"Yes, Miss?"

"It was nice finally meeting you."

For such a smart AI, he seemed a little dumbstruck by that. It wasn't exactly a secret at the time that Tony Stark had an AI, but not completely public knowledge either, and most people didn't know his name.

"You too, Young Miss."

Morgan was a little sad she wouldn't be able to stay and talk to him, but he wasn't what, or rather who, she had come for. Once she got down to ground level, Morgan put up her 'I'm Definitely Supposed To Be Here' front and walked out of the door of Stark Tower, into the street towards the shawarma place her Uncle Clint had brought her to before. When she had visited it in 2029, it was beautiful on the inside and out, a celebration of culture, with the addition of a 'Favorite of The Avengers' poster outside it, no doubt a main selling point for its success. Now, in 2012, the place was rundown and scruffy. Not dirty, but like years of history were worn into its shop front. She took a breath, and walked into the restaurant where her father, aunt and uncles all sat.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, Please leave a Kudos and/or a comment if you liked :) Any interaction welcome.


End file.
